Edition 10 - Heavy History
After a little hiatus, we are back! When I left Prague to be with my family, I had no idea what the following 3-months would look like. These past many months have been filled with both incredible experiences and broken hearts alike. I’m so thankful I was able to heal from the loss of my rockstar of a grandma alongside my family. I am just as thankful that I can keep moving and exploring, all while keeping her memory with me each step of the way.
Welcome to Poland!
Poland
March 26 - April 4
Krakow
I arrived in Krakow on Wednesday, March 27th after a very long journey from LAX (stopping in Denver, Frankfurt, and Warsaw before arriving at my final destination). The following day, I started my journey through the city. Something that stands out in Krakow in comparison to the other cities that I traveled to in Poland is that Krakow was barely touched during WWII. When the Nazis came to Krakow, they decided to turn the city into their capital/headquarters in Poland and therefore, they took really good care of the buildings and didn’t destroy much. This means that many of the buildings still existing today are originals from the prewar time.
As many people know, there is a deep Jewish history within Krakow. Before WWII, there were 70,000 Jews in just the city alone, making up 30% of the total population. For many years, Poland was very religiously tolerant - kings of Poland welcomed Jews while, for the most part, western Europe was consistently kicking them out. By the 15th century, there was already a Jewish Quarter - the quarter was initially outside of Krakow but eventually, the city limits expanded. However, after a few hundred years of poverty, sickness, and distraught conditions, lots of Jews had moved out of the Jewish Quarter and had fully assimilated into new communities in other parts of Krakow - then WWII began. It’s no surprise that 90% of Krakow’s Jewish population perished during WWII whether at Auschwitz II - Birkenau, Plaszow (a concentration camp within the city of Krakow), or any other camp or ghetto. There is a dark history here, but there is also a flourishing and astonishing community that exists now. But my tour guide (who happened to be a non-Jewish American with close ties to the Jewish community of Krakow) closed out the tour with a powerful statement: Never think about the Jewish quarter as ‘history’, it is still presently our Jewish quarter.
Shabbat at the Krakow JCC
For Shabbat, I decided to spend Friday night at the JCC in Krakow. Every time I am somewhere for Shabbat, I always expect the crowd to be small, and every week I am consistently proved wrong. At this dinner were was a mix of some travelers like me, some locals, a group of US high school Juniors who are doing a semester of study in Jerusalem through a Ramah camp program, a group of US doctors/nurses staying in Krakow to help the large Ukrainian refugee population, and JCC fellows who are spending a few months volunteering with the JCC on all of their initiatives.
The dinner consisted of incredible conversations. I spoke with a German couple who sat in front of me about their connection to Polish Jews through the wife’s grandmother, despite them not being Jewish themselves. This was their first time at a Shabbat dinner but they were drawn there because of their powerful connection. I spoke with a high school Junior from Las Vegas about humanizing individual people rather than grouping them under some label or group, especially during times like this.
I also dove deep into the experience of an 18-year-old from California who found herself graduating high school a semester early and decided to spend her extra few months here in Krakow, volunteering at the JCC. She developed a close connection and passion for the community during a trip to Poland just a year prior and when she had this extra time during her last year of high school, she was immediately pulled back. Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Krakow JCC has helped refugees find safety, housing, and in some cases, work. When this high school California native reached out about volunteering, the JCC put out feelers to see where she could stay in Krakow - a Ukrainian woman and her 13-year-old daughter reached out. She said that when she and her daughter first came to Krakow when the war broke out, a Polish couple took them in without asking a thing of them. This was her way of passing on the favor. It is truly incredible to hear about the work that this community does for the Ukrainian community, but it is even more astonishing when you meet them and see that despite what they are going through and what they have lost, they still give so much. I met both the mother and the daughter that night and they were so full of warmth and kindness.
Gdańsk
On Sunday, March 31st, I took a train up north to a little city called Gdańsk. After about 5.5 hours on the train and a slight phone mishap, I made it to my hostel for the next few days. I decided to stay in a hostel that was just a little bit outside of the city walls - about an hour walk or a 20-minute bus ride. After setting down my items in the hostel, I (naturally) decided to walk into the old town alongside the river and spent the evening exploring the adorable, rebuilt city.
What do I mean by ‘rebuilt’? Well, unfortunately, Gdańsk was not spared like Krakow was when the Nazi regime took over. About 95% of the city was destroyed and only 25% of it was rebuilt following WWII and the Communist rule. However, when the city was rebuilt, there was an active effort to recreate was what destroyed instead of just modernizing with the open space. This has led to a really beautiful and timeless city that seems as though it withstood evil eras while in reality, it allows for us to peer through a looking glass of time from before.
Warsaw
On the morning of Tuesday, April 2nd I took a pretty easy train from Gdańsk to Warsaw. Warsaw has a pretty similar history to that of Gdańsk - about 80% of the city was either destroyed or severely damaged during the 20th century. Most of Warsaw was recreated in the 20 years following the war and citizens actually used paintings from before the war to bring the pre-war city back to life.
Overall, here are some highlights from my time in Poland:
A very emotionally tolling day touring Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau
By far, one of the most special and eye-opening shabbatot I’ve had abroad at the Krakow JCC
My final night in Krakow consisting of pierogies and bars with my new hostel friends from Germany, Iran, Russia, Peru, and India
A day in Gdańsk consisting of a walking tour and exploring the city with a hostel friend I met at breakfast that morning
Dinner and exchanging wild past hostel experiences in the hostel kitchen with new friends from India, the Netherlands, and the UK
Taking time to catch up in Warsaw with some wonderful people I initially met in Krakow
A brunch in Warsaw alongside some great new friends at a wonderful place next door to our hostel
Exploring the POLIN Museum in Warsaw which walks through the deep history of Jews in Poland in a very interactive and artistic fashion
Coming Up Next
Where am I off to next? Well, the next newsletter will be set somewhere:
whose language has Slavik, Finnish, and Turkish origins
famous for their natural hot springs all over the country
that has a strange obsession with putting paprika on everything
See you in Hungary!